WFET
WFET, virtual channel 48 (UHF digital channel 49), is a Telemundo owned-and-operated television station licensed to Toad Harbor, Mushroom Kingdom. The station is owned by the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations subsidiary of NBCUniversal, as part of a duopoly with NBC owned-and-operated station WNTV (channel 11), also licensed to Toad Harbor. History The station first signed on the air on May 31, 1981 as an independent station. It was owned by National Group Television, which was headed by N. J. Douglas. The station initially offered programming weekdays from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. from the Financial News Network. From 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays and from noon to 4 p.m. weekends, the station ran off network shows from the 1950s and early 1960s such as Fury, Gentle Ben, Flipper, Batman starring Adam West, The Danny Thomas Show, The Jackie Gleason Show and old low-budget movies. Weekdays after 7 p.m. and weekends throughout much of the day, the station offered various types of brokered programming included foreign language shows, religious programs and some programming pertaining to technology. The station branded under the slogan "Turn Your TV into a Personal Computer". Beginning in the fall of 1981, WFET carried the subscription television service Star TV, featuring recent movies, after 7 p.m. daily. By 1983, they were carrying subscription TV after 12 noon on weekends. By 1983, the off network shows were dropped for more brokered programming. That year, the station ran various brokered programming weekends from 5 a.m. to noon and from 3 to 6 p.m. weekdays. Financial news remained weekdays till 3 p.m. MusicAfterDark, premiering in August 1984, was a three-hour weekly live show that featured music videos and comedy. MusicAfterDark ''aired from 9 p.m. to midnight every Saturday for a year and a half and became a cult favorite. In 1984, Star TV began winding down operations due to the fact cable penetration eliminated the need for Subscription TV over the air. In January 1985, the station partnered with a few other Spanish-language independent stations, including WNDU New Donk City, to carry about eight hours a day of Spanish programming (which replaced Star TV programming locally) on weekday evenings, forming a network known as NetSpan; later in the year, other stations gradually joined the network. Spanish programming gradually increased, on weekends especially and brokered shows gradually were dropped. By 1986, WFET was running Spanish programming for about half of its broadcast day on weekdays but the entire day weekends. Later that year the Financial News Network programming ended and the station became the entire broadcast day. NetSpan was relaunched as Telemundo in mid-1987. By then, the station was running the network's programming about 16 hours a day. Telemundo bought the station outright later that year, at which time WFET began carrying Telemundo programming full-time. In 2000, as a result of its corporate takeover of Telemundo, NBC became the owner of WFET; it then became a sister station to WNTV (channel 11), which also originally was a general entertainment independent station, after NBC bought that station from Granite Broadcasting Corporation in 2002. The station moved into an all-digital broadcast center housed alongside WNTV in 2004. Digital television Analog-to-digital conversion WFET shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 48, on June 12, 2009, as part of the federally mandated transition from analog to digital television. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 49, using PSIP to display WFET's virtual channel as 48 on digital television receivers. News operation WFET presently broadcasts 12 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 2 hours each weekday and 1 hour on Saturdays and Sundays). In 1988, WFET launched its news department with the debut of a half-hour 6 p.m. newscast. The program proved successful, which resulted in the station later adding a half-hour 11 p.m. newscast. In 2001, WFET launched a morning newscast and a mid-morning newscast. These were canceled in 2004. 2006 saw the dismantling of the local news operation and the creation of a regional news operation to serve the eastern United States as part of the NBCUni 2.0 cost-cutting initiative. This was later reversed and local news production was restored at WFET. On February 27, 2012, WFET became the first Spanish language television station in Toad Harbor to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. 2014 saw a series of news expansions at Telemundo, WFET included. A second attempt at a two-hour morning newscast, titled ''Noticiero Telemundo 48 Primera Edición, began in June, and in November, WFET launched a 5:30 p.m. newscast as part of a national news expansion; a 10am newscast also was added to the schedule at this time. Additionally, WFET received a new set, began producing its own weather segments locally, launched a local Telemundo Responde consumer investigative franchise, added 20 additional staffers to its news department and began a deeper sharing of resources including the public affairs program with WNTV. In 2015, the morning newscast was cut back to one hour, airing from 6-7am. Effective June 27, 2016, the morning and 10 a.m. newscasts will be axed in order to begin the production of weekend editions of the 5:30 and 11 p.m. newscasts beginning July 2. Category:Channel 48 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1981 Category:Former independent stations Category:Former Independent stations Category:Former NetSpan affiliates Category:Telemundo affiliated stations Category:NBCUniversal Category:Toad Harbor Category:Mushroom Kingdom Category:Telemundo O&O stations